Yucca in the snow.
It’s been a long winter here in Indiana. Thank goodness it hasn’t been too cold this year. As some of you know we underwent some major life changes at the end of last year. Tweetchat and the Blog Talk Radio Show has been put “on hold” for now – but never fear – we intend to reinstate these two items soon.
Jerry laying tile on top of the cabinets.
While we have been waiting for the money to start construction on the roof, we worked on other areas of the house using materials we already had on hand or using materials given to us. For example, we had to remove the tops of the old countertops. They were old and cracking. We thought we were going to sand them down and stain the countertop but the glue that held the backing was not coming off. A friend suggested we try using floor tile. She had a box, so we did. Eventually we will replace this, but for now it is clean and we can use our countertop once again.
Jerry texturing the ceiling with drywall mud.
Another area we worked on was the downstairs bedroom where my dad was staying. The walls are old in this house and like most old walls, are full of hairline cracks. I really hate looking at cracks in walls, so we are trying to fill those cracks in with drywall mud. Sometimes just rubbing a light coat into the cracks works well and sometimes texturing is necessary – or just a fun way to give a room a unique look.
This is how the room was when we started.
This is the room now.
One wall of the room needed to be left open for easy access to the staircase. It seemed like something was always being shoved against that wall, or the pictures were always being knocked off when people walked past, so I can up with an idea of my own. I decided to create a mural on that wall using a wood doll I bought at a garage sale, some mirrored butterflies I bought on clearance and a flowering tree. Here is what I came up with.
This wall mural - including a gallon of paint - cost less than $50 to create.
The next big project we are tackling is the roof and the three rooms that will be protected by that roof. The materials to put the roof back on the office and greenhouse area are ordered. We have a wonderful contractor working on this. We chose Estate Grey for the roof and Victorian Grey for the siding. The materials are expected to arrive on Monday and once they are here, work will begin.
The office area will have a vaulted ceiling as well as a “kitchen area” where I can do videos. It will be larger than my actual kitchen. The cabinets for this area are being donated by a dear friend who is getting new ones in her kitchen. They will be put to good use, that’s for sure!
I hope the room is large enough to handle my desk, floor loom and both spinning wheels plus give adequate space for the woodburner.
The large greenhouse must wait a few more months before repairs will begin, but the small one, right off my office will be ready for plants once the roof is on.
Jerry’s office will also be ready for him to move into once the roof is on. YAY! I will be glad for him to have his own space – and I am sure he will too. Every life change has required him to pack up his things and move them from room to room to make space for whatever we need to do. That won’t happen again!
Things are looking up. We have made it through thanks to the love and support of many dear friends and family. Thank you all for your prayers and concern during this time. I’m looking forward to spring. I’m looking forward to a large garden and having plenty of produce to share – again this year – with the less fortunate in our community who need it! This is our way of giving back.
Filed under About Us, Homestead Happenings by on Jan 28th, 2012. Comment. 
Our house.
2011 is coming to an end quickly. I am reflecting on a lot of things and trying to put everything that has happened over the past year and a half into perspective. It seems like some major changes loom on the horizon and while I really dislike change, sometimes it can’t be helped.
My dad in the hospital.
As some of you know, my dad came to live with us in September 2010 due to numerous medical conditions that left him unable to work or live alone. He lived in a rental home, so we had to move his things here as quickly as possible. That was a pure nightmare trying to find room for his things without literally moving our own things out. He wanted his own items and I am sure it was tough for him as well when he found out many of his items would not be coming into the house.
The week before Christmas 2010 I found him unconscious on the floor in his room. He was airlifted to Fort Wayne where he remained for several weeks before being sent to a nursing home where he resided until the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2011.
During the time he was in the nursing home we struggled to get our finances back on track. Buying medicine and special food for someone can sure cost a lot when they don’t have insurance. We finally got the bills caught up and was able to hire someone to fix our roof. I left for the Garden Writers Symposium. Things were looking up – then all hell broke out.
We put a tarp over the roof to try to block the rain.
I came home – after being gone just a week – to find the entire roof torn off our home. Yip – nothing was up there. The roofer had stashed stolen property here on top of all that. When he got caught he informed me he was not going to put the roof on. He laughed. He said he knew my husband couldn’t do it. He knew we would have no heat. He didn’t give a damn. After all, he wasn’t getting everything he wanted from me. Unfortunately I had trusted him and had already given him money, a chainsaw and food in good faith.
So, we bought a tarp. We hoped it would hold the rain out until tax time when we could hire someone else. Needless to say, the tarp didn’t help. I was at my wit’s end when I got the call from the nursing home about my dad. Yip – no 30 day notice, nothing other than he was leaving that day. Period – and no, they did not have to find a place to send him.
My dad – with dementia – walked out of the dining room door at the nursing home and wandered in the woods for 3 1/2 hours until some deer hunters spotted him. Thank goodness they didn’t shoot him. They called the police, who called me. By the time I got there he was laying down close to the water. He was ok though.
The next step was to get his medication. The nursing home would not give it to me. I had to take him to the ER to get his insulin. I could not afford all of his medication, so I just bought the insulin. Monday I took him to the Dr. who wrote him new prescriptions. I explained to the Meijer pharmacist what had happened and he made the appropriate phone calls to get us help with his first round of medications. I was so grateful!
Six days later Jerry lost his job. A job he had worked for 9 years and the one we relied on for income. They did not pay him his accrued hours and so far he has not received any unemployment compensation. The nursing home still has not issued a refund to my dad. It seems most programs around here have a year and a half waiting list, but there are some wonderful people in the community working on trying to find a way to help us get a roof on our house. There were also some wonderful people who came forward to help us through the holiday season. The bills are paid for this month thanks to their generosity and we have plenty of food to eat.
It is one day at a time from here on out. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but we will deal with things as they happen. There isn’t much else we can do at this point.
Beauty eating hay.
I hope we will not have to sell the animals due to this situation. That would almost be more than I could deal with after everything we have been through to keep them. We have hay for now and I hope we can find a way to keep buying hay. It is $4 a bale here and they eat a bale a day. I did set up a fundraiser several months ago when feed costs went up hoping to keep our head above water. I never dreamed when I set it up that we would be in dire need later in the year.
My Christmas present from Jerry was an aquaponics set-up made from items we already had on hand and he is working on finishing the large tunnel house. We started with 12 small Tilapia, known as fingerlings and a 20-gallon fish tank.
As long as we can keep the house, we will be fine – and that is our main goal. I don’t want to lose the vehicles because that will put us at a real disadvantage, but the house is more important. My dad is getting along ok this time – much better than he was before.
Due to these unexpected changes, I have discontinued my Blog Talk Radio Show and I am seriously considering stopping the weekly #homesteadchat unless I can find some volunteers to help moderate it. Caring for someone who is unable to care for themselves is a 24/7 job. Finding time to do anything on a set schedule is becoming increasingly difficult.I do not have any family I can get to help out.
We have also started taking Jerry’s mom back and forth to work again, plus we take her to other places she needs to go such as the grocery store and pharmacy since she does not drive and his father is unable to drive due to illness. The stress level is quite high here and I just feel like there isn’t enough hours in the day. I don’t feel like I am getting enough sleep and I always seem to have a headache. Hopefully once I can get outside and start planting again that will relieve some of the stress.
Jerry is looking for a job – and is taking on freelance jobs such as website design – but jobs in this area are hard to find. If you know of any computer-related jobs in the Grant County, Indiana area, please let us know. The sooner he can get back to work, the better.
I hope all of you have a safe and happy holiday season – and please do stay in touch. I know things are hard for all of us right now, but as long as we have a place to live and can continue to grow our own food, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel!
Filed under About Us by on Dec 25th, 2011. 2 Comments.
It has been a crazy summer here at Exotic Gardening Farms & Wildlife Habitat. This summer has been the worst since we have lived here for drought. The ground is cracked, the corn dried up. The tomatoes are doing fine, still and the pole beans made it through most of the summer ok. The potatoes were ate by something. Everyone I dug had chew holes in them. Interestingly a friend went up north to get potatoes and there were none there. What is unusual about this is that these come from a large potato chip company, and on average, I bring back about 1,000 pounds a year. She came home empty handed.
We had our first baby sheep born on May 9.
The intense summer heat caused her mother Pearl to have heat stroke and die, shortly thereafter we lost Jewel to lightening. Johnny is doing fine, but quite lonely. I am trying to get to Virginia to pick up a mate for Johnny, but I am not sure that is going to happen this year.
Sugar and Spice, the goats, gave birth in July. Sugar had one little boy and Spice had two girls. They are doing fine and ready to go to new homes.
Trisha, my step-daughter (sort-of, because her dad and I were never married), came down and brought her baby Noah to visit. She also brought two new cats to stay with us, Bubby and Lucky.
My dad had two massive heart attacks the beginning of September. He spent most of the month in the hospital. He is living here with us for now. He was also diagnosed with diabetes, kidney failure, his pancreas is failing, he is low on potassium and had to be given magnesium as well. It is touch and go, but hopefully he will get his strength back soon.
In addition to my dad, his two dogs, Bubba and Justis, are staying here too. Four dogs in the house, and two cats are loads of fun……….
The bunnies escaped their cages this year and are running around the property. We had six babies born, but the cats found them before I was able to get them put into a cage.
Lots of trees, shrubs and perennials, including some natives have died off this year. Even the privet hedge, which have been here for years, are showing signs of drought.
I did not get as much food put up as I would have liked, so winter will be tough this year, but the winter garden is planted, so that should help. I expect the greenhouse is not going to get repaired. There is just too much going on here.
Hopefully winter will be short and somewhat mild. I’m hoping spring will bring better weather and good news. I think we could all use some.
Filed under About Us, Homestead Happenings by on Sep 30th, 2010. Comment.
After wanting to change my haircolor to pink, purple, blue or some other outrageous color since the 1980′s, I have finally done it. I chose pink for my first experiment.
My friend Laura came over and put the dye in my hair. It looks wonderful! I am so thrilled with the change.
Using a chemical product is not a normal choice I would make. I prefer everything to be natural or organic. Some things are still not easily available, such as unusual colored hair dye.
Remember, just because you live on a farm where the people who see you the most are four-legged animals does not mean you cannot look good!
Filed under About Us by on Apr 7th, 2010. 2 Comments.
The decision to go back to the land, to do it all yourself is one that you should give careful consideration to. It is the ideal way to live for many people and full of satisfaction. However, there are always two sides to every story.
On one of the groups I belong to someone wrote that they were giving up their dream of homesteading because – gasp! – they found out it was hard work! WOW! Imagine that!
What did they think it was going to be? A romantic, back to land vacation. Hmm, where did that idea come from? Oh yea, Hollywood.
We’ve been working on the dream for five years and let me emphasize the word WORK. There has been fencing to run – and of course, some animals just seem to know where to find the weak spots, stalls to build, land to till, weeds to pull, stalls to clean – shall I go on?
There is nothing quite like chasing an escaped animal through traffic or going into a neighbor’s yard to retrieve your chicken, especially when that neighbor hates animals. We have been lucky that we have only had a couple incidents, early on, of escaping animals. We found that by tying metal conduit to the top and bottom of the chain link fencing the animals would not challenge the fence. This may not work in every case, but in our case, it did.
Is homesteading worth it? Every minute is an adventure. Do I get sick of this life? Yeah, sometimes, a vacation would be really nice, but who would take care of the plants and animals? Finding someone you can trust your livelihood too is not an easy task.
It is time to get Beauty the horses’ hooves trimmed again. That is a task I just do not look forward to. We have a great Ferrier and Beauty, once caught, does well when he trims her, but scheduling can be an issue with so much going on here.
Angora goats are cute but the hair can get tangled or caught easily. I look forward to getting two batches of mohair from Leonardo per year. I am planning to spin it so it will be ready to use when I find a suitable project I wish to use it on.
Come spring I will need to get the Leicester Longwool Sheep, Pearl and Johnny sheared. Their wool is so curly and thick. Underneath it is shiny and oh so soft. This year I am thinking I may hire someone with electric shears. Last year I used scissors and did it by hand. It took several weeks to get everyone sheared, not to mention the fact that I had sores on my fingers from the scissors.
Spring will bring many changes here at the farm as well. Two of the goats, Sugar and Spice, will – hopefully – give birth to babies. I will be so happy to have fresh milk again and be able to make cheese and butter! I did not breed Darla or Tulip this year. I may have baby lambs if Johnny and Pearl breed. We have not had lambs yet, so that will be a new experience.
There are plans underway to put in more raised beds. Some of the herbs and strawberries have already been moved into raised beds. I like growing plants in raised beds because it makes it easier to cultivate the soil. The fruit trees will be another year older and that should mean more fruit.
The goal is to grow all of our own herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables as well as raise some of our own meat. The less money I have to spend at the grocery store, the happier I am.
Soon February will be rolling around again and it will be time to tap the maple trees. We tapped the trees last year but did not get the maple sap boiled down. I really hope this year we accomplish this goal. I would love to have my own maple syrup.
Spring will also bring the birth of new chickens. The hens we have now have figured out how to hide the eggs. They hatched a couple bunches of baby chicks this past year. They were so cute. Not all of them survived, but sometimes that happens.
Would I do this again? YOU BET! Is this the right decision for you? That depends on your outlook on life and how hard you want to work to acheive your dreams.
Filed under About Us by on Dec 8th, 2009. 11 Comments.
Life is never slow here on the homestead. There is always an animal needing their hoofs trimmed, needing brushed, sheared or just wanting some attention. This year it seems like there were always new babies being born – goats, chickens or rabbits.
Mornings consist of watering everyone, giving grain to the poulty, does (female goats) and Beauty, while everyone else gets hay. The process begins again every evening, rain, shine, sleet or snow. Even on the days when the barn door freezes shut, we have to get in to take care of the animals.
Right now we are heating our house with wood. We have a wood stove in my office and another one in the greenhouse. Due to Jerry’s chainsaw breaking late in the summer, he is using an axe to chop up the wood then using a sledge hammer to break it into pieces small enough to fit in the wood burner. The average temperature in our house is 60 degrees F, which is much colder than what I like. With wood floors, getting up at night with bare feet can be downright bone chilling.
Many things have changed here over the last few months. For one, I found out I had a granddaughter, Trinity. She came to stay with us for a few days.
Her parents came here for Thanksgiving which was nice, as well as my longtime friend Alice.
We ate in the dining room under the kerosene chandelier.
We had turkey filled with creole butter, two kinds of stuffing – bread and cornbread, turkey gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, biscuits, brussles sprouts, salad, pumpkin pie and cherry pie. It was a feast fit for a king and the best Thanksgiving I have had in several years.
Little Trinity enjoyed stuffing herself until she couldn’t eat another bite. Then it was off to take a bath, get dressed in one of the fleece sleepers Grandma bought her and off to bed where I am sure she spent the night dreaming of her first Thanksgiving and the adventures she had.
We have not put up the Christmas tree yet. Things are changing here again. With Trinity gone life has gone back to normal – no diaper changes, no late night bottle feedings, no baby clothes or blankets to wash. I can come and go as I please now, but something is missing. She is missing. It is funny how a baby can change your life in a short amount of time.
In a way, baby animals change your life too. You watch them be born, you watch them grow, then you watch them go off to their new home. Odd. When we were trimming the baby goat hooves for the last time, I thought I heard them say “mom, mom, mom” as they tried to get back to their mothers. The two mama goats jumped up, looked over the wall at their babies and gave a gentle “nay” as if to say “it is time you went on to your new home, but remember I love you.”
Filed under About Us, Homestead Happenings, Miscellanous by on Dec 8th, 2009. 2 Comments.
Welcome to the Experimental Homesteader site! I am so excited about this site finally going live! For the past five years, my husband Jerry and I have lived on a small farm which we named Exotic Gardening Farm & Wildlife Habitat. We have an acre and a half of land. The photo above was of the house when we bought it five years ago.
When we first moved here I was excited that the house was equipped with wood heat. Sometimes that is wonderful and sometimes it can be a real pain! Getting up several times at night to put logs on the fire is not fun, nor is waking up to a cool house in the morning. We are getting used to it however.
Cooking with cast iron on the wood stove is a real blast! Since the wood stove is in my office it makes cooking and working at the same time much easier. We love roasts in the cast iron Dutch oven. I have cooked breads, bacon, chicken, vegetables and potatoes on the wood stove. Learning how to regulate the heat and keep it steady by adding small pieces of wood is the trick.
We moved here in August and the following spring decided to get chickens and ducks. I had raised them before but Jerry was new to having animals. He was taken by how cute the ducks were. Cute and messy, let me assure you.
That summer the chickens and ducks settled in, began laying eggs and of course, produced an abundance. I was selling eggs as fast as I could fill egg cartons at $1.50 a dozen.
When winter came, the chickens and ducks quit laying. It was work going out in the snow to give them food and water. The coop became quit messy. I guess that is what happens when they stay in a confined area.
The next year we decided to get a goat. It was a mistake to get just one goat. Darla did not like being the only goat. We had to get a companion.
That was where Mr. Buck came in. When we brought Mr. Buck home, life was great, that is until he decided to use his horns in an attempt to tear the stall down!
We got a second goat, Sugar. Mr. Buck and Darla decided to gang up on her. After a while she began to fit in, but really, why was I keeping Mr. Buck when he continued to destroy things? So, we put him up for sale.
Before we could sell him, we got a third doe, Spice. She was Sugar’s sister and a great milker. When we introduced her, the other goats ganged up on her. The three does all came from the same breeder and knew each other, but that Mr. Buck was a gang leader if ever there was one! He had to go! So, I gave him away.
Things were going pretty good with the goats. I was getting lots of milk, learning to make cheese, butter, ice cream and a slew of other dairy products.
Then along came Beauty. She was an abused horse that was starving. She was given to us. The story went that a lady had strapped her head to a saddle and was beating her into submission. She was also not feeding her. Beauty broke the straps and stomped the woman. The woman ended up almost dying. The hay man took Beauty and passed her on to another person. She would not eat with his horses, so he asked me if I wanted her. I said yes. She was unnamed, but her beauty showed, even in the condition she was in, so her name became Beauty.
Since I was getting into spinning, I decided I wanted some angora rabbits. That was the next quest. Rabbits are fun indeed, but hand picking the angora can be time consuming. We now have four rabbits.
We also acquired a cashmere doe we named Tulip because of the white Tulip on her forehead.
In between time we have had turkeys, peacocks, pheasants and guinea. We still have the pheasant. Having guineas as close to town as we are was not working well.
Finding someone to breed our goats was a problem. After a year of them not being bred, we decided to do something about it and get a buck. Now, I did not want just any old buck, I wanted an angora. We searched high and low for one when a friend called with a phone number of a lady a county away that raised them. I called her and went to pick up our buck. We named him Leonardo, or Leo for short.
Last August, for my birthday, we added a pair of Leicester Longwool sheep – Johnny and Pearl. I wanted them for the fiber but more importantly I wanted to help preserve an endangered breed. They are the sweetest of all the animals, very obedient, very loving and very shy.
In early summer we were blessed with seven baby goats – two does, Faith and Victoria.
Five boys whom we wethered – Rembrant – a cashgora, Cyrus, Raphael, Nutmeg and Cinnamon.
We raise most of our own food – fruits, vegetables and herbs. We butcher the extra roosters when necessary. We are working to learn to live off of our own land. I have a greenhouse that allows me to grow tropical plants year round and start seedlings in the spring. We garden outdoors year round with the help of cold frames. We can, dehydrate, ferment and the list goes on.
I hope you will come with us on our journey to self-sufficiency. Hopefully you will pick up some survival skills along the way!
Filed under About Us by on Oct 27th, 2009. Comment.
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